“At three?” he inquired bluntly.

“At three o’clock in your room, Hotel Vice-Regent.  Good morning, Captain.”

“Good morning,” said Harren dreamily, and walked away, head bent, gray eyes lost in retrospection, and on his lean, bronzed, attractive face an afterglow of color wholly becoming.

CHAPTER IX

When the Tracer of Lost Persons entered Captain Harren’s room at the Hotel Vice-Regent that afternoon he found the young man standing at a center table, pencil in hand, studying a sheet of paper which was covered with letters and figures.

The two men eyed one another in silence for a moment, then Harren pointed grimly to the confusion of letters and figures covering dozens of scattered sheets lying on the table.

“That’s part of my madness,” he said with a short laugh.  “Can you make anything of such lunatic work?”

The Tracer picked up a sheet of paper covered with letters of the alphabet and Roman and Arabic numerals.  He dropped it presently and picked up another comparatively blank sheet, on which were the following figures: 

[Illustration:  Cryptographic symbols]

He studied it for a while, then glanced interrogatively at Harren.

“It’s nothing,” said Harren.  “I’ve been groping for three years—­but it’s no use.  That’s lunatics’ work.”  He wheeled squarely on his heels, looking straight at the Tracer. “Do you think I’ve had a touch of the sun?”

“No,” said Mr. Keen, drawing a chair to the table.  “Saner men than you or I have spent a lifetime over this so-called Seal of Solomon.”  He laid his finger on the two symbols—­

[Illustration:  Cryptographic symbols]

Then, looking across the table at Harren:  “What,” he asked, “has the Seal of Solomon to do with your case?”

“She—­” muttered Harren, and fell silent.

The Tracer waited; Harren said nothing.

“Where is the photograph?”

Harren unlocked a drawer in the table, hesitated, looked strangely at the Tracer.

“Mr. Keen,” he said, “there is nothing on earth I hold more sacred than this.  There is only one thing in the world that could justify me in showing it to a living soul—­my—­my desire to find—­her—­”

“No,” said Keen coolly, “that is not enough to justify you—­the mere desire to find the living original of this apparition.  Nothing could justify your showing it unless you love her.”

Harren held the picture tightly, staring full at the Tracer.  A dull flush mounted to his forehead, and very slowly he laid the picture before the Tracer of Lost Persons.

Minute after minute sped while the Tracer bent above the photograph, his finely modeled features absolutely devoid of expression.  Harren had drawn his chair beside him, and now sat leaning forward, bronzed cheek resting in his hand, staring fixedly at the picture.